President Barack Obama’s liberal backers have a long list of grievances. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, they say, is the prime obstacle to the changes they thought Mr. Obama’s election would bring.

One of today’s most over-reported political topics is “the fractured right.” Policy factions, a lack of leaders, minority status–the storyline changes, but the subject does not. The media cannot pretend to hide its enthusiasm. However, if the media could sublimate its exterior cheerleader and unleash its inner reporter, it would find the fractures on the political spectrum’s other end are wider, older, and more threatening.